The present invention relates in general to improved information processing systems. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and system for the generation of image icons.
The development of distributed, computer networks, such as the Internet, allows users to retrieve vast amounts of electronic information previously unavailable. The Internet increasingly is displacing more conventional means of information transmission, such as newspapers, magazines, and even television.
Electronic information transferred between computer networks (e.g., the Internet) can be presented to a user in hypertext, a metaphor for presenting information in a manner in which text, images, sounds, and actions become linked together in a complex, non-sequential web of associations that permit the user to xe2x80x9cbrowsexe2x80x9d through related topics, regardless of the presented order of the topics. For example, traveling among links to the word xe2x80x9cironxe2x80x9d in an article might lead the user to the periodic table of the chemical elements (i.e., linked by the word xe2x80x9cironxe2x80x9d), or to a reference to the use of iron in weapons in Europe in the Dark Ages. The term xe2x80x9chypertextxe2x80x9d is used to describe documents, as presented by a computer, that express the nonlinear structure of ideas, as opposed to the linear format of books, film, and speech. The combination of hypertext documents connected by their links in the Internet is referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW).
Networked computers utilizing hypertext conventions typically follow a client/server architecture. A xe2x80x9cclientxe2x80x9d is usually a computer that requests a service provided by another computer (i.e., a server). A xe2x80x9cserverxe2x80x9d is typically a remote computer system accessible over information to the user as responses to the client. The client typically contains a program, called a browser, that communicates the requests to the server and formats the responses for viewing (browsing) at the client. The browser retrieves a web page from the server and displays it to the user at the client. A xe2x80x9cweb pagexe2x80x9d (also referred to as a xe2x80x9cpagexe2x80x9d) is a data file, or document, written in a hyper-text language that may have hyperlinks, text, graphic images, and even multimedia objects, such as sound recordings or video clips, associated with that data file.
The user can create multiple instances, or invocations, of the browser, each simultaneously running in a window on the display screen and each displaying a web page. Since space on a display screen is limited, the user may choose to minimize one or more of the browser instances. Minimizing a browser creates an icon, which is a small imagexe2x80x94plus minimal, associated textxe2x80x94that represents the browser. In the future, when the user wishes to see the web page again, the user can select the icon using mouse or other pointing device, which causes the browser and its web page to be restored to full view. Over time, the user may accumulate many icons, which can be small and not easily distinguishable, especially because the images in each browser icon are identical since the icon represents the browser and not the web page (it is only the minimal, associated text that might relate to the web page). In addition to the browser, a user might also have many other windows open or minimized as icons. This creates additional clutter on the display and causes the user even more difficulty when searching for the desired icon.
Thus, users often spend much time squinting at small icons, trying to remember which icon is associated with which web page or window. Some operating systems allow the user to place the pointing-device pointer over the icon, which creates bubble text that provides a description of the associated web page or window, but this is time consuming when the user has many icons from which to choose, and the text is not always helpful. Some icons have minimal, associated text that relates to the web page, but not all do and the space for such text is quite limited.
Thus, there is a need for a mechanism that creates icons that are easily distinguishable.
The invention is a method and system for automatically generating icons. In the preferred embodiment, a browser displays a web page in a window on a display screen. The browser selects a subset of the page, and transforms the subset to an icon. The browser then displays the icon, which represents the browser and the page, on the display screen. Thus, when multiple invocations of the browser are active, each invocation will have a different, associated icon, depending on each invocation""s current page. In this way, the user can easily distinguish between the browser invocations by viewing the different icons.